


Home, Sweet Home

by Lady_Banana



Series: The Last of The Kingdom Of Hyrule [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, I dong really know what to tag this as, i guess, zelink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 20:10:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18630445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Banana/pseuds/Lady_Banana
Summary: The two last members of the Kingdom Of Hyrule take a break from travelling and rest in the house Link had bought during his quest to defeat Calamity Ganon. Zelda gives him an offer that in the past Link would have loved but now he’s not so sure.





	Home, Sweet Home

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Posting an unedited and unplanned Drabble on my AO3 account, more likely than you think.  
> So apologies for any mistakes or things that don’t make sense in this thing.

Zelda stretched her legs and rolled her ankles, the steady soreness from travel eased. Her clothes clinging to her skin and she felt a flicker of guilt that she allowed Link to continue out in the cold as he got food.

Zelda looked around the house while her fingers dragged through her wet and tangled hair, there were no adornments or a flicker personal touch of Link’s, all but a pressed and dried flower ha hung next to the front door. The white and blue petals wrinkled with dehydration and possibly even age. Zelda stood on her sore legs and moved to inspect the flower which had shown signs of decay but not from the preservation of the flower. Zelda’s hand brushed against the glass and the door slowly moved open and Zelda jumped back. Link only raised one of his eyebrows and smiled offering one of bowls in his hand, the spoon sliding towards her in a silent offer. His usually bright blue tunic had darkened with rain and the hood he wore sagged nearly over his eyes. Zelda took the offered bowl. “Thank you,” she smiled and Link bowed his head.

He tugged off the hood and pulled it off of his body. Zelda closed the door and cut off the outside world with only one last glance at the world outside, the rain slowing. “So this is your house?” She asked, wondering if Link would continue the conversion.

Over their weeks and months of travel Link had opened up and had started talking to Zelda more and more. First only a few words and little sentences but eventually they grew to hold conversations mainly lead by Zelda with Link adding in comments about the terrain. He nodded and hummed in confirmation. Zelda moved to sit down and started on her bowl of soup. Zelda hummed in delight and sat eating in silence. Link finished first, only signified by the clatter of the a wooden bowl and wooden spoon clattering together. Zelda glances to her side, watching as Link frowned at the empty bowl, almost as if he realised he was in a safe place and hadn’t needed to eat as quickly as possible before moving on again. She returned to her own food. “Will you return here after everything?” Zelda asked turning to watch Link who was frowning at his princess, his queen.

The shock on his face melted smoothly into a frown and then a blank slate reminiscent of his face decades ago when she had been nothing but ungrateful to the young man saving her life after she ran head first into danger. It stayed there longer than any of the other emotions and Zelda wouldn’t have recognised the shifts before. He turned to look at the floor ahead of him as if the facial expression had been enough of an answer.

_ ‘I’ll do whatever you command of me.’ _

Zelda frowned looking around the room once more, the flower and the more recent empty bowl on the table before them, the only signs someone lived here. 

“It's just that you’ve already done so much, you don’t need to live out the rest of your life protecting me, I can travel with others on the road and find some others to guide me. You can be free with no restraints to live your life with my hopes of rebuilding Hyrule to shoulder, and should I succeed you’d always have a home there too,” Zelda offered a smile. Link’s body was still, Zelda wasn’t even sure the Hero of Hyrule was breathing.

“I think I saw some travelers arriving in the village around the same time as we did, I could ask to join their group tomorrow,” Zelda offered up, unnerved by his stillness. “Link?”

He looked up and offered a tight smile and gave a curt nod to the princess before standing up and leaving the house. Zelda set down her own bowl and touched the Shiekah Slate still resting at her hip and looked to their travel bags resting next to one another. She sighed through her nose and sat next to her bag, looking for a hairbrush.

She knew she had upset him, that she had done something wrong and that things had been moving so smoothly between them after Calamity Ganon and that of course things would have never stayed so neat. Zelda held her brush in her hands. It’s smooth wooden handle wasn’t like the one she had decades ago. Zelda traced a finger on the wooden back of the hairbrush, following invisible detailing, the curves and smaller detailing that had been on her old one.

All of her items were painfully new. New for a newly released princess of a destroyed kingdom. New for new beginnings and a relationship with her knight that made it impossible for them to go back to the way they were before. Zelda closed her eyes and let the brush detangle all of the knots in her hair.

~

Link sat under a tree overlooking the hills that slowly melded into Hateno Beach not even quite sure on what had angered him so much. Zelda had looked at him warmly as she had offered to travel with someone else, offering a life that someone else would love, Link might even love himself. He held the master sword in his hand, holding it across his lap. He continued to watch the grass fade into sand. Slowly travelling between the different divine beasts and slowly recovering his memories and building his opinions on the people he had known. In his memories Zelda had came off as a hot  headed and jaded princess under stress that he couldn’t have waited to be dismissed from. But those brief intermissions of her snapping orders and using him as an outlet had rocked the view sideways. Her laughter and amazement at the world they were destined to protect, her smiles that had been directed at him, her constant companion. And then how she’d been, covered in dirt and a stained white dress, smiling at him with possibly tears in her eyes. She had become so at ease, even with him at her side. Link had started to doubt his memories of her, especially as she made an effort to leave gaps in her almost constant chatter and allowed Link to look over her shoulder onto his, her, Sheikah Slate. And then she had offered for him to leave. Stay at the small but peaceful Hateno Village. Have a home to rest in as the lone queen would have traveled beneath the stars sleeping with one eye open in fear of what dwells in the dark. He could be playing with the children who had often asked him to play when he had needed to visit Purah for supplies. While she carried the weight of a fragmented kingdom on her shoulders. Link frowned.

He had never had a choice in his life before waking up to the call of his name, feeling a tug open his eyes and cool stone beneath him. Before everything had been ruined by Calamity Ganon, his father had been a knight, he had trained every day, never resting unless he physically couldn’t get out of bed and stand. He had been four years old when he had been able to fight men double his height and quadruple his weight. Pushed into the role of protecting the princess who seemed to detest his presence. Died, apparently for her.

And then after waking up, finding centuries had passed he had been pushed to free the Divine Beasts and save his charge. The task had given little freedom but provided small little gifts of it. Travelling in the vast expanses of land. Buying this house had been a wreckless move on his half, dooming it purely because he could. He had always wanted a home, at least the appeal had came to him as he travelled. Tried to justify the reason to buy this house to store weapons and shields not in use and of too much bulk to actually carry with him. Not that it mattered much now. He’d brought all of them in and only escaped with the master sword.

The princess had asked if he wanted to split ways with her, smiled sadly as she did it, but offered a life of a simple villager that he might’ve wanted to once be. A nobody who enjoyed cooking and offering his aid to people.

Yet he didn’t want that.

He wanted to continue to travel the land with her, watch as she witnessed ruins and sprawling forests she would have never dreamed of. Experience her delight in new creatures and meeting fellow travellers on the roads. Nothing more than two nameless travelers despite the forgotten Hylian colours separating them from the rest. Yet maybe she didn’t want him, she couldn’t blame her, he’d never really bothered to learn the flows of conversation, never had one to really talk to his age, never wanted to talk until meeting the Champions. He left her to do the talking as he guided them through the lands and villages, buying or cooking food for the pair of them, collecting supplies as payment for her company. Link stood up and held his sword upright, letting the handle of the blade settle into his hand as if it had been moulded for him and start to go through the routine of exercises he had picked up whilst recovering memories.

~

Zelda tugged at the last knot in her hair as the door opened to reveal Link whose attention snagged on Zelda brushing through her hair. “Need help?” He asked quietly, moving inside the house and closing the door.

“I-“ Zelda looked to the hair brush thoroughly tangled in her hair and sighed. “Yes, please,” she shifted around so there was enough space for Link to fit behind her, she watched him move until he was hidden from view thanks to her golden hair, it had changed tones since the last time she remembered seeing her hair, it’s shine was less bright and more natural, as if the power she had possessed shone through her hair. A hand brushed hers in a silent question if she was going to let go of her hair brush. Zelda loosened her fingers and let her hand slide out of the gap between her brush and Link’s warm hand. He held her hair above the hair brush, lightly enough not to tug at the strands himself but tight enough that they didn’t slide through his fingers. He was efficient in pulling out the hair brush and untangling the knot, as he finished Zelda opened her mouth to say thanks when Link’s hands continued to move through her hair, combing it with his fingers, Zelda almost leaned into the touch, holding onto her folded legs to keep her back straight, Link began to pull it back, not a strand was left near her ears or before them, instead being pulled into a tight braid. The princess and knight sat in comfortable silence, in their own little bubble of wood and stone as the world fell asleep around them.

“I’m sorry if I did something to offend you, as I watched over you from the castle I saw your freedom, you had such a look on your face that I’d never seen before, you showed so much joy in your brief freedom. Playing with the children, helping out those in need, tasting meals from all over the continent. And even after all that, you still answered my request, not that it was even a request, to follow me and rebuild Hyrule,” Zelda’s throat was tight and words almost failed her. “I didn’t want you to lose that, and to see this house I think it finally clicked into place what I was making you leave behind to possibly return,” Zelda shook her head slightly as to not disturb the knight still braiding her hair. “I want you to be happy Link, I’d never seen you smile, I wanted you to smile more, experience the life I so selfishly expected you to waste on my futile hopes on rebuilding the kingdom I never wanted to rule.”

Link made no sounds other than the sounds of his gloved hands brushing against the ends of her hair as it was tied back.

As Link’s hands left Zelda’s hair, she turned. “Even if that means I’d give up the comforts of…” she swallowed and shook her head. She looked at Link, blinking through the tears that had started to form in her eyes. He was watching her as if she was a completely new person, his hands still in the air from where they had been positioned to braid her hair. 

“I…” he blinked and slowly reached for her shoulders and turned her so she was sitting like she had been before she turned. Hands still resting on her shoulders to prevent her from turning to look at him he started talking. “I want to travel the continent with you, see you and your freedom just like you did mine. I want to be the sword by your side and shield at your back protecting you. I want to be the person you can rely on. I don’t want you to be alone,” the words Link spoke were more than he often spoke in a day by himself. “I don’t want to hear rumours of the Hylian Queen questing to rebuild Hyrule to the strength that it once was and then beyond. I want to be right there with you, so you know that you’re never alone. I-“ Link sucked in a breath as all of the words he had been wanting to scream since younger than being able to talk. “I don’t want to be alone,” came out in barely a whisper and Link felt Zelda’s shoulders go slack under his hands. Zelda barely registered the feeling of Link’s head pressing into her back or the heavy breathing as if those words had choked the young man behind her.

Zelda reached for one of his hands on her shoulder, it fell away at the slightest touch falling to the side. Zelda moved and managed to catch the other one before it fell. She turned to face him as his head hung low, kneeling in front of Link, a memory brushed against her thoughts.

Zelda remembered Link kneeling before her like she was right now and herself lying in the mud, sobs escaping her that she couldn’t control, the cold mud and rain soaking the both of them thoroughly. Yet Link had only held his arms open slightly, a silent offer. Zelda mimicked the action her hero had done years ago, only this time her hand held his, her fingers tangled with his, just like their destinies, the rough fabric of his gloves and the freezing cold of his fingers meeting her smooth and warm hands. He leaned forward and fell into her arms trying to calm his breathing as he hid her face in her arm, squeezing the hand he now held in his tightly yet gently. 

Zelda rested her head on top of his, his hair soft against her forehead and nose.

“No matter what, you’ll always have me, you can leave my service at any time Link,” she whispered. “I’m sorry so much has been thrusted onto your shoulder by me and so many others. I’m sorry I have always been so selfish.”

Link sighed softly, his hand tightening in hers.

“Thank you Link,” Zelda pulled away, her voice still remaining quiet. “For everything.”

Link lifted his head and smiled in response.


End file.
